Roadways made of concrete, asphalt, and compacted soil are subject to extreme stresses from thermal cycling, vehicular traffic, and UV exposure which eventually lead to defects in the roadway such as cracks and potholes. Concrete roadways require large amounts of heavy raw materials to be transported to the road building site, which is prohibitively expensive for roads placed in remote locations for access to mines, oil and gas pipelines, logging sites and the like. Asphalt may be used for applications that require a high level of durability, but the cost of transporting the heavy raw materials needed for this system is prohibitively expensive for many applications.
Reclaimer-stabilizer machines are typically used to prepare new surface materials from existing road beds by pulverizing the road bed material and compacting the remaining soil. These machines may include rotating cutting assemblies, scrapers, augers and other systems designed to pulverize, reclaim, compact, and otherwise stabilize untreated in-situ soil materials or an existing roadbed. Within the context of this disclosure, “in-situ soil materials” refer to any pre-existing earthen materials such as sand, dust, clay, rock, and other earthen materials that are pre-existing at the site of road formation and which have not been transported thereto.